Fragmented
by somnambulantly
Summary: Short, interconnected snippets from Ashley's POV based on the last two episodes of the season.
1. Chapter 1

i

The day is too bright even from behind sunglasses but the headache is not all hangover. She doesn't play flippant well, and the silence in the car has been telling. Their house comes in the view and I realize that I've stopped more than two blocks away without conscious thought. She looks at me now, and I shrug.

"I still have raccoon eyes." We both know nothing is visible behind my sunglasses, but she nods along as I finish. "Wouldn't want to scare your mom more than she already is by showing up like this." Truth is, silent disapproval from one member of the Carlin clan is more than enough to start the day – adding a possible encounter from Mrs. C would be too much.

"Okay, then." She opens the door and my chest constricts. My hand is on hers, stopping her.

"Wait. Are we... okay?" I hate how my voice sounds, young and vulnerable and everything I don't want to be. Not again.

She looks back at me and for the first time since I met her, I can read nothing in her eyes. Then she reaches out and lifts my sunglasses to the top of my head, laying me bare. I let her, I let her see me and it has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done, sitting like this under the glare of the sun and the inscrutability of her gaze. When did she learn to hide her eyes like that?

She blinks then, and lowers her head, and when she looks back at me her smile is tender, but tinged with a touch of something I recognize only too well; resignation.

"Yes, yes we are. Go home and take care of that hangover, and I'll call you later." And then she leans in quickly, and I can smell her hair as she kisses me on the cheek. I realize that the smell of her hair was threaded through my dreams last night. My hand is up, pads of my fingers tentative against the skin of my cheek where her lips were just a moment ago, and when she looks at me this time, her smile is all Spencer Carlin; open, kind and a tad mischievous. "'kay. I'm off to dash Glen's high hetero hopes."

I turn the car around, not wanting to watch her walk away. Five minutes later, after taking the seventh blind turn, I have to pull up. I don't know where I am. My forehead against the steering wheel, I briefly wonder if I will have to throw up. This is not hangover, I know. This is equal parts fear and excitement. There is more, I know, but I am not strong enough to take stock of it. I straighten up and slip my glasses back down again. How easy it is to get lost. How difficult to find your way again.

LA glitters in the sunlight before me, deceptively benign. I descend into the madness.

ii

I stared at Spencer, not believing what I heard. Her mom slapped her. The shock of hearing it was bracing. The "Can't leave home without breakfast" mother. The "Diagonally cut sandwiches" mother. Hit Spencer. Because of me.

Of course, Spencer didn't say that – she would never even intimate it, but I learned to read between the lines and hear the unspoken at an early age.

And Spencer… I could see how hard she tried to be flippant and breezy about it – straight from the Ashley School of Parental Dysfunction – but it's difficult to pull off the could-care-less attitude when you have to keep blinking away tears. I should know.

That was the first time I heard her voice on the verge of tears. I could have cried for her right then. But, instead, I followed her lead and threw out a joke about maternal mood swings and dangers of estrogen imbalance in women of that age. Spencer tried a chuckle, but it came out as a cross between a hiccup and a sob.

I undid my seatbelt and opened my arms. She looked at me, wide-eyed, and swallowed. For a second she teetered on the edge of deciding whether to try to tough it out or give in, and it nearly killed me to see her like that. Was it mere weeks ago that Spencer was a daughter going to the movies with her mother and receiving good-night kisses like all good girls do? A tear slipped down her cheek, and she slid into my arms and sobbed.

I held her then and didn't say anything. What could I say to her? "It will be okay"? "She didn't mean it, Spence"? "If they hit you, at least you know they still care"? Hold your tongue, Ashley. Instead, I let her cry, and kissed the top of her head; a pale substitute for what she lost.

Afterwards, I gave her a tissue and lent her my mirror as I drove us to school. Half-way there she turned the music on, loud. I looked at her. She smiled. Then she put her hand on my forearm and left it there. She didn't have to say anything – we had the music and the wind in our hair and we could make that be enough for a while. And - she tried to hit a high note in the song and I cringed - maybe it _would _be okay.

iii

My hands shake. This is not excitement. This is all fear. She is sitting under the sun, face turned up, eyes closed. Students buoy around her, talking, laughing and I am amazed, over and over again, how they fail to be struck dumb by the sight of her. I look away. Sunshine hurts my eyes.

If I go over there, she will smile, and complain about her math teacher, and ask me about my day. We will sit next to each other and laugh, like we have on days like these in weeks past, but none of it will be the same. I will put on my "Ashley knows best" face and tell her that her math teacher is taking his sexual frustration at home out on his students, and she will scrunch up her face in fake disgust and then laugh, and shake her head saying that I bring sex into everything, and then we will be making plans for later on that night and talk of clothes and – and we will be looking at each other the entire time, saying something completely different with our eyes. And everyone around us, all the jaded, knowing, disapproving eyes will notice the change, too. Spencer doesn't know the rules of the game. Spencer still doesn't know that you have to lie to live. And when I look at her, when she smiles at me, she makes me forget there is a game being played out there, and that it is a spectator sport.

I can't forget for long. Cue in Madison with her splenetic taunts. Notice the quiet glare of the homeroom teacher when Spencer leans in to close to me, and giggles. He is not upset about the noise; his gaze is on the hand she has laid on my arm, and left there, and I twitch under his eyes, and move my arm away. See the involuntary sneer on unknown faces as our hands brush when we walk by them. The rules change when you move from the sidelines and join the game.

And then there are the stares. I've gotten used to the thrumming wave of whispers in school corridors, the thin-lipped disapproval and the occasional bump-in in the hallways that is just strong enough to make it clear that it wasn't unintentional. It's a part of the daily routine now, and I have learned to give as good as I get. Some days it is almost fun – to see how many of them I can make back down. Some days you simply must find something to laugh about. The stares, though, they envelop her now, too. Every time her voice rings out in laughter to something I said just to make her laugh, eyes will be on her, judging, and weighing. Every time we meet in the hallways, pause to say 'hey, and 'what's up', they will be watching from the sidelines for the tell-tale signs of the dreaded lesbian affliction. They couldn't taint what was already tainted when it came to me, but they can do damage here. This is new. This is brand new and shiny and I want to protect her from all of it, from the mocking and the insults, from everything that will, day by day, turn this brand new thing we have into something dull and dirty, something fit for Ashley Davies.

And she... She is becoming bolder. She has learned that the Davies bravado crumbles like petrified chalk under her smile and renders me smitten and tongue-tied, and she is learning to play with that knowledge. Her touches are longer now, more pronounced, and she observes me as she lets her hand linger, head cocked to the side, a small smile on her lips. She has grown to revel in the effect she has on me. She watches as I spill my coffee when her hand brushes against the back pocket of my jeans. She notices the white-kunckled grip on my pen when she leans over me to look at my notes, breasts to shoulder blades. There are times I want her so badly I think my hands would burn her if I touched her. There were times I was sure she felt the same. I held back, wanting her to be sure. She has made me discover strength and control where I thought I only had want and selfishness. She doesn't want me to hold back anymore. I look around at the suspicious, hostile faces around us and realize she doesn't know what she is asking for.

There are times when I tell myself I can be strong enough, strong for both of us. I can protect her. I can be enough. You lie to live. I can't lie to myself.

I fist my hands to chase away the tremors. She waits for me on the bench, lunch break almost half-over. Turning away from her, then, and walking away is the easiest thing I have done in the last few months. I let her bask in the sunshine.


	2. Chapter 2

iv

She is waiting for me after classes, by my locker. I know she is hurt and confused and probably angered by my avoidance, but I still can't help but revel in the hot rush of… of something _nice_ every time I see her.

She is leaning against my locker with her head tilted down and she looks at me from below furrowed brows. This is her "I'm really trying to understand you" face. Usually I am happy to see her like that – happy that she cares enough to try – but she has gotten too good at reading me and now it makes me nervous. A nervous Ashley gets self-defensive.

"Spencerella! To what do I owe the stalking?"

"Ash, that's not funny." And it's not, but I'm on a roll. If I talk fast enough and loud enough I might be able to talk my way through… whatever _this_ is and get away and go home. To hide. And think.

"Aww, come on, Spence, with a long face like that, people are bound to think we had a lover's spat, or something."

I have perfected these little zingers over the years – just enough verbal bluster to throw them off and slip away – but it only works if I can walk away before they can respond to me, cashing in on my advantage. And she is still leaning against my locker and looking at me and so I have to stay there with my too big smile and my "nothing's wrong" eyes. This is the Plastic Ashley, the nod and smile version of me in full-on self-defense mode and I haven't used her with Spencer since… Kelly. It's what I do when I need to keep above the emotional fray - just a little botox for my heart._ How well I have learned, mother._

She looks at me, that Spencer look again, and I bear it vapidly and then she drops her head and shakes it and I can already anticipate the frustration and disappointment I'll see when she looks at me again. _You are not the first, Spence, to feel that way about me._

Instead, I am shaken when she pushes off the locker and takes a step forward, nothing but concern in her eyes.

"Ash… Please tell me what's wrong?" her hand slides down my arm in a caress, in encouragement, and when it reaches my hand, our pinkies entangle and stay connected.

One touch. One question. I am nearly undone. I open my mouth – I want to tell her everything – that I am scared and lost and no good, and that she will hurt me or I will hurt her and that I can't sleep at night and-

"Hey, it's my two favorite ex-straight girls! How are you, ladies?"

It's such perfectly _wrong_ timing that an incredulous laugh escapes me before I can help myself. Aiden.

Spencer is not quite as amused. "You've _got_ to be shitting me!" That is, at most, the third time I have ever heard her swear. Aiden, of course, striding towards us and waiving, is oblivious to the little scene he just broke up.

"Ash-," she says, but Aiden is nearly here, and the moment is gone and, frankly, I am relieved at the interruption.

Then he is here, giving us both the one-armed clinch around the neck that's a sign of boy-affection and I am truly happy he showed up.

"You two are going to be the sole beneficiaries of free drinks on me tonight. We are going to Gray's and we are going to be _par-tay-ing_!

He is still holding us and our faces are near, and I know she is also remembering the last time the three of us were in this position, and I glance at her lips and see her nostrils flare in response, and – and then I roll my eyes at her and mouth "_He is SO gay_". It is good to hear her laugh.

We disengage and Aiden looks back and forth between us, thrumming with giddiness.

"Aiden," she is shaking her head and squinting up at him, amused. "It's Monday. We just finished the first day of classes – isn't it a bit too early in the week to be partying?"

Aiden and I share an indulgent glance at this. She has come a long way in the past few months and I'm truly in love with the girl, but she is such a Brady someti- I stop. I try to replay the last thought, but my mind skitters away from it. All of a sudden my heart feels like it wants to thump its way out of my chest and onto the gum-encrusted pavement before us.

Aiden is saying something about finally being approached to play ball in college, and Spencer is making excited noises in response to that, and then there's silence and they are both looking at me.

"What!" It comes out sharp, too sharp, and I start a little mantra in my head – _calmdown, calmdown, calmdown…_

"I said – whaddaya say, Ash? Three of us? Celebrate?"

I glance at him and stretch my lips into a smile. _Put it on automatic, Ash_. "Sure, I'm in. Just us Three Musketqueers!"

He smiles. "Cool!" Then he frowns and blinks, as it registers. "Hey… what do you mean-

I go for my opening. "Aid, can you drop Spence off at home, please – I just remembered I have something to do, thanks! I'll call you two later to make plans!" and then I'm walking away and I think I can _feel_ her staring at my back, bewildered, and maybe I do, the feeling is that strong, and when I turn the corner, I run, but I don't know from whom. And I don't know towards what.


	3. Chapter 3

v

I love her. I _love_ her. The words, even mouthed silently in the quiet of my room, angle my jaw in ways I am unused to. I try the more familiar. I want her. I want Spencer. That's an undeniable fact. I want her. She wants me too, this much I know. Another fact. These are the building blocks, the simple rules of attraction.

I have been here before. The want. The desire. The heady beginning with all the usual symptoms of physical infatuation; sweaty palms, the purely Pavlovian reaction to every sound my cellphone makes, and all those looks exchanged, burning us with a hungry fire. This has all happened before. I know how to medicate myself through lust. The steps are familiar: the onset of fever, the full-blown case of the affliction, and then the speedy reconvalescence into full mental health – and on to another adventure.

And yet, despite the familiar signs, none of this is the same. I'm in love with her. I have been speaking the language of Lust for so long and so eloquently, I have learned the short-hand of it by heart. It was always the condensed version with me; a night, a week, and then a plain, final goodbye. Cliff's Notes of relationships. Simple. Small words, short sentences, quick pay-off. Now I have been rendered mute by this new dialect my stubborn heart is insisting upon, all the short words made unintelligible, the message changed. I want her. True. And, yet, the meaning is not the same anymore. Lust is love. Love is...

I would laugh at myself if I weren't afraid it would turn slightly hysterical. All these maudlin thoughts thrum inside my head, all these trite poetics, but when I open my mouth to say something, say _anything_ to her, nonsense comes out. I love these fucking _brownies_, for god's sake? I have been rendered mute, tongue tied into a Gordian knot in my mouth, but all these new wordsunknown and strangely shaped, keep knocking into my clenched teeth, wanting out.

I love her. I taste them, roll their shape across a tongue unused to talking about such things. I love her. I love Spencer. I try to get used to their heaviness in my mouth, to rub down the sharp edges of their meaning. _Say it, Ashley._ I open my mouth. I lick my lips. I have been rendered mute. It's a new virus, this mutation burning into my cells with every beat of my heart, a disease I thought myself inoculated against. Love. Love has rendered me mute. Love, still, wants to be spoken of.

I love her. I can't stop the thought, this inner mantra, any more than I could stop the rush of blood in my veins. How could a truth so self-evident escape me for so long? Was it there all along, a familiar graffiti on the wall directly in front of me, unintelligible to the untrained eye? I am learning a new language. I grasp the meaning. I cannot shape the words yet.

I love her. This love has rendered me mute. The rules change when you move from the sidelines and join the game, Ash. Very well. I have been rendered mute. The words crowd my throat, fighting to get out. I cannot use them.

I look at my hands. So steady now. Very well. My speech has failed me? I will learn the language of signs. I will shape the letters with my hands, write out sentences with my fingers. If she can't understand me, I will teach her the Braille of my love. We will learn the shape of the new language together.

I love her. I let the fever take me.

vi

I can't do this.

vii

When I look at her, I know what weakness is. I can feel it in my bones, this lack of strength to look away, to resist, this dearth of determination to walk away from her. They taught us this in biology, a lesson I was bored enough to pay attention to, the self-preservation instinct. We all have it hard-wired in our brains, to flee in front of danger, all impulse, no thought. And here I am, paralyzed with fear. Immobile with want. A sequined tight-rope walker caught between what she wants and what she fears, wire sharp and slippery underneath the balls of her feet, seeing no comfort on either end of the rope.

She has short-circuited me. I am the tamed animal at her feet though in the back of my throat I can already taste the hurt she will cause me, the heartbreak – this is a story that can only end one way, after all – but one look at her and I stay put, muzzle to paws, I forgo the freedom of the solitary hunt.

_Shit. She has me comparing myself to a lone wolf. This is bad._

I play with the make-up brush. It glides over my cheeks, my mouth, my closed eyes. For a moment it is almost enough, a simple touch, a fleeting pleasure. I am afraid to want more. But I can't help myself.

Love is pain. I don't know who said that – someone smarter than me, certainly. And here it is, undeniable, the burn and pinch of it in my chest with every inhale. I have learned it so well, this involuntary reaction to our every meeting, so well I already brace myself for it even before I see her; a look at her, a sharp intake of breath, an involuntary smile – and in the background of it all, this frightening free-fall inside me. My heart is on a yo-yo string, all it takes is a touch of her fingers on my forearm, and there it goes – from my throat down to the pits of my stomach, and back again.

I can smell her whenever she sits near, air between us hot with possibilities. I do nothing to turn what is possible into what is real. I am a coward. And yet I don't run. Instead, I fall back on the basics of self-defense, the Ashley Routine – the tease, the reel-in, the pull-back – but this time it is me who is jerking uncontrollably at the end of the line, hooked and gasping for air.

She has taught me what weakness is. I lay out my clothes for tonight carefully, nearly nauseous with anxiety. Every piece of the ensemble is a talisman, a charm. Black, to keep my feelings hidden. Silk, to stay cool to her touch. Lace, to make her want me as I want her. This will be my armor for tonight. It will not be enough to protect me. I am weak. I will succumb.

I look in the mirror. Old Ashley looks back at me, seemingly impervious in the Chinese-style dress, the lacquered chopsticks holding her hair up sharp enough to draw blood. She looks as though she could wound with a look, smite with a smile. Only her eyes betray her.

I have faced my weakness. Will I find my strength?

vii

Blue neon of Gray's sign is flashing erratically, throwing eerie light across the cab of my car. My heart follows its fitful tempo, a beat, two, then silence, then a stampede of scared beats, then silence, then... My hands are slick on the steering wheel, my mouth dry. Aiden's car is parked next to mine, and I know they're already inside, waiting for me.

Love trumps fear every time. How ironic.

I close my eyes, screw them tight, will myself to let go of the steering wheel, open the door, step outside. To take that step. I see her in the darkness behind my eyelids, confused but determined, and so strong. Spencer.

I swallow. I open the car door.

I am not ready. Not yet. Not like this.

I take a step, two, three, Gray's door looming before me. I'm not ready yet. I need some time. She will understand.


End file.
